The Darryl Sutter Situation

Today, after reading everything and anything I could find on the Kings coaching situation, I became nervous about the thought of Darryl Sutter as the Kings new head coach. Sutter seems to be everything that Terry Murray was except angrier.

Same focus on defensive hockey. Same old school mindsets. Even worse grimace.

Concerned for what replacing one stubborn dinosaur with another would mean to the success of the Kings, I was inspired by a post on Matthew Barry’s new blog, suggesting that we e-mail Kings Governor Tim Leiweke asking him to not let Dean Lombardi hire Darry Sutter.

So I did:

Our beloved Kings are going through some interesting times.

Finally blessed and simultaneously cursed with higher expectations, it has been a challenging season for the team.

Terry Murray was terrific at instilling important and subtle defensive principles in his team, but I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn by saying he was not able to get the best out of the team offensively.

With the widespread rumor of Darryl Sutter being named as the next coach behind the Los Angeles Kings bench, this email is a plea to at least reconsider.

If the problems the Kings face are mainly offensive creativity, is he the best replacement? I don’t know the answer to this, I am genuinely asking. If the people put in place to make these decisions feel that to be the case, then we will (try to) reserve judgment. But this quote from an AP article about Darryl Sutter’s firing from the Sharks in 2002 makes me second guess the sentiment:

“Sutter stresses a disciplined, two-way brand of hockey that didn’t make much use of star goal-scorer Teemu Selanne last season, and most of the Sharks’ younger players have taken several years to develop into contributors under Sutter’s veteran-oriented lead.”

I hope we don’t all have to go through this to only be in the same place in the very near future.

Sincerely,

A loyal fan.

Of course I was not expecting a response. But sure enough, I got one:

It’s unfortunate we find ourselves in this position, Terry was a good man but we had no choice. I cannot won’t and dictate to Dean. He needs to make this choice. I do agree that we need someone that is more emotional and driven. But the final choice is Dean’s. I appreciate the fact that like me, your mad and passionate.

Hang in there with us.

TJL

Of course, he is probably sending the same exact email to every fan that wrote him, but he does not have to at all. Nor does he need to even make his email address public.

And, unfortunately, he is right. We don’t want ownership meddling with team decisions, and if he has any reason to believe that this decision shouldn’t be 100% Dean Lombardi’s, then we’d be seeing a new General Manager as well as coach.

Whoever Lombardi appoints, even if its pterodactyl face, we should assume that he is the best person for the job.